Kant’s conception of self as subject and its embodiment

Abstract

This paper examines Kant’s conception of the self as subject, to show that it points to an understanding of the self as embodied. By considering ways in which the manifold of representations can be unified, different notions of self are identified through the subjective perspectives they define. This involves an examination of Kant’s distinction between subjective and objective unities of consciousness, and the notion of empirical unity of apperception in the first Critique, as well as the discussion of judgements of perception and judgements of experience in the Prolegomena. If this identifies the self as subject through its embodied perspective, it leaves open the question of the self’s existence. The paper proposes an interpretation of Kant’s brief statements on this matter which provides grounds for an existence claim that extends to the embodied self. This suggests considering Kant’s view of the certainty of one’s existence as involving a feeling of self, albeit in a specifically Kantian form drawing on the transcendental unity of apperception. This feeling of self introduces a practical dimension that supports the claim that any determination of the self as subject has to be practical, namely as free agent subject to inclinations, insofar as he is embodied.